Joe Hisaishi Conducts

Conducted by composer Joe Hisaishi, this powerful programme serves as a stark reminder of two acts of great violence that humans have wreaked upon themselves. Hisaishi, known primarily for his Studio Ghibli soundtracks, presents his own cinematic response to, in his own words, “the anxiety and chaos” unleashed at 9/11. The End of the World is a wildly imaginative suite of orchestral bombast, wailing solo instrumental lines, fragments of jazz and a poignant soprano solo sung by Ella Taylor, setting words by Hisaishi’s daughter Mai. Hisaishi’s setting of the song The End of the World, made famous in the 1960s by Skeeter Davis, adds an eerie conclusion. The work’s incessant, rhythmic fourth movement, “Beyond the World”, appears to be directly influenced by the soundscapes of Steve Reich’s The Desert Music, which opens the album. Reich’s cantata, setting words by US poet William Carlos Williams, is a response to the testing of nuclear weapons in the New Mexico desert, and to the dropping of similar bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, resulting in 120,000 instant deaths, and many thousands more in the years after. The music is incessant, richly scored, and one of Reich’s more beautiful works. Hisaishi conducts a tight performance that gives the composer’s vision ample room to breathe.